he had not been in the middle of these kind of do and dirty a fights, the ugly reality of governing in washington today. >> the president walked into the presidency with an expectation that he wod be able to reach across the aisle, that republicans and democrats alike would be willing to come to the table and address these issues that were a significant problem and needed to be addressed if we were going to move the country forward.bl >> narrator: and obama believed he had a big issue that could unite democrats and republics:bl health care reform. >> we were sitting in the oval office and we were sort of having a debate around health care at one point, and the president said, "it's about health care, but it's not really about health care. it's also about proving whether we can still solve big problems in this country." and this was going to be the test case for that. >> narrator: and it was also personal. >> there was also this desire to achieve something great. people said that his greatest accomplishment was his own rise. bobbrush in that 2000 race would say, "what's he ever really d